iPad and a Large Video Library

[Jet noise]

I'm currently converting my DVD collection into MP4 format for the ipad. When I'm done, I'll have around 1TB of data or around 1,000 movie files. I originally thought I would just load the movies I want to watch in iTunes, then sync and refresh the list from time to time. But, that takes a while to load and sync. And, I don't have as much space on my computer as I do on my ipad, so I can't load the ipad as full as I want.
Somewhere on here I read about a device that allows a person to watch movies without syncing through iTunes. I think it might have streamed to a URL or something like that. After all the work I'll do to convert everything, it would really be nice to be able to access the whole library from anywhere because I travel a lot! Is there such a device that can stream everything? How does it work, what's it called, and how well does it work? I hate buffering in the middle of a good scene! Lol.
Any advice you guys have would be appreciated. I'm a simple minded dude but I can learn new tricks if need be!

 

[AQ_OC]

One solution is pogoplug. I have a series 4. I hook up a 1TB drive to it and copy all of my rips to it. With the app on my iPad, I can stream from any place. It works great inside my house. In practice, it doesn't work so well outside of the house....probably because my upload speed from my home ISP is too slow. It would work better from my laptop as I can just copy the file over then play after it is done. My home ISPs upload speed is much, much slower than download speed.

When I am away from home, I just load a bunch of rips onto my Airstash+ and stream those to my iPad. It is local, so there is no problem with speed. IMO, this is the best solution.

The other solution with pogoplug is that they will sell (rent) you 1 TB of their cloud storage for very cheap...and you can load your rips there...them download from anywhere without worrying about the slow upload speeds from typical home ISPs.

There are other cloud storage solutions.

By the way, I don't bother converting my whole collection to mp4 for iPad use.....because most of the time I'd rather watch a good movie on my home theater with big screen tv and surround sound. I do keep a good number of ripped mp4 movies at the ready for when I travel, but these are things I don't mind watching over or things I record off tv that I want to catch up on later over the holiday. Most of my effort is in ripping my entire collection to my media server, in bit-perfect format (no mp4, full bluray). This way, I can watch anything in my vast collection over my network. I can also rip anything I want to mp4 with ease because it is already on my hard drive (say if I am planning to travel). I have about 40 TB of bit-perfect ripped content.